The strange striations on Europa's surface are thought to have been caused by tidal stresses from Jupiter as the ice cracks and warmer layers come to the surface. The same process may be responsible for transporting oxygen below the surface.
Credit: NASA
SYDNEY: The globe-spanning ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa contains about twice the liquid water of all Earth’s oceans combined, says a new study, which finds it’s packed with oxygen which could support life.
Research completed by Richard Greenberg a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, suggests that there could be as much as 100 times the amount of oxygen previously estimated. The findings were presented last week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.
Experts have been unsure how likely life would be, because the liquid ocean is found under a several-kilometre-thick shell of ice, which acts as a barrier to oxygen which is created cosmic rays at the surface.
Oxygen for life
Without oxygen, life with a metabolism we are familiar with could conceivably exist at hot springs in the ocean floor using exotic metabolic chemistries, based on sulphur or the production of methane. However, it is not certain whether the ocean floor could provide the appropriate conditions.
To this end, researchers sought to estimate the level of oxygen reaching the ocean. To find out more, experts led by Greenberg considered the age of the moon’s surface. Its geology and a lack of impact craters, suggests that the ice is continually reformed in an active process and the current surface maybe no more than 50 million years old, just a fraction of the age of the Moon.
The experts considered three generic resurfacing processes: the gradual layering of fresh material on the surface; cracks which are filled with fresh ice from below; and patches of ice that are disrupted and replaced with fresh material.
Using estimates for the production of oxygen at the surface, Greenberg found that the delivery rate into the ocean is so fast that the oxygen concentration could exceed that of the Earth’s oceans in only a few million years.
3 billion kg of macrofauna
He said that the concentrations of oxygen would be great enough to support not only microorganisms, but also more complex animal life with greater oxygen demands. The continual supply of oxygen could support roughly 3 billion kilograms of 'macrofauna', the research suggests - assuming similar oxygen demands to terrestrial fish.
The good news for the question of the origin of life is that there would be a delay of a couple of billion years before the first surface oxygen reached the ocean. Without that delay, the first pre-biotic chemistry and the first primitive organic structures would be disrupted by oxidation. Oxidation is a hazard unless organisms have evolved protection from its damaging effects, said Greenberg. A similar delay in the production of oxygen on Earth was probably essential for allowing life to get started here.
With the American Astronomical Society.
Jupiter moon's ocean is rich in oxygen
If there is an ocean on this moon of Jupiter then one would expect there to be some Oxygen present. Even a small amount would sustain life as we know it. Why pay people like Greenberg lots of dollars to state the obvious unless it is a presumption/assumption that there is an ocean of water on this moon.
GD
When are we going?
Why the hell are we planning to go back to the damn moon and not spending all of our time and money getting a probe here? Who cares about landing on the moon again. Europa is where the real questions are.
Striations in Europa's Ice Shell
The striations in and apparently below Europa's translucent or transparent ice cover or shell look very much like relatively dense vegetation branching or vein-like branching (inclusive of capillaries, veins and arteries). It is hard not to view the picture provided in this way. I'm sure you and mainstream institutional science have observed the same thing but are being cautiously quiet about it, fearing to be in too-good-to-be-true error in publicly offering this consideration.
"Where life is possible, there is life."
"Where the conditions conducive to life exist sufficiently, there is life there."
Let us not quake in our shoes about the probability of this as regards Europa. For me, in light of the information provided by your article, my mind has been pushed to the tipping point into concluding, without a doubt, that there is massively thriving life on planetoid Europa, the moon of Jupiter. Let us be responsible and respectful and ethical in the utmost in relating to it, and not treat Europa and its life as an extraterrestrial zoo or amusement water park, for profit-making tourism by humans or insensitive and/or ruthless experiments by curiosity-crazy high-I.Q. amoral and immoral scientists, and business, political and military folks. We can bet that life there has been around for as long as has been life on Earth and that evolution is a universal process that applies there.
Europa's Striations
Is the picture in the article true colour, if so what could be the reason for the reddish colouring of the striations.???
Norm Bourne
Coloring on Europa
The color in the image that is attached to the article in Cosmos is false color. It was originally created by Paul Geissler in the late 1990s. Paul was working with me at the time. The image is a combination of black and white images taken by the Galileo spacecraft through different filters, mostly at wavelengths a bit longer than visible light. Without exaggerated false color, Europa would look essentially plain white. The surface is water ice with a few impurities, such as the oxygen discussed in the article.
For more about Europa, read my book "Unmasking Europa: the Search for Life on Jupiter's Ocean Moon".
Richard Greenberg
University of Arizona
Coloring on Europa
The color in the image that is attached to the article in Cosmos is false color. It was originally created by Paul Geissler in the late 1990s. Paul was working with me at the time. The image is a combination of black and white images taken by the Galileo spacecraft through different filters, mostly at wavelengths a bit longer than visible light. Without exaggerated false color, Europa would look essentially plain white. The surface is water ice with a few impurities, such as the oxygen discussed in the article.
For more about Europa, read my book "Unmasking Europa: the Search for Life on Jupiter's Ocean Moon".
Richard Greenberg
University of Arizona
there is one thing i do not
there is one thing i do not get.
why are we assuming that life must exist as we know it? As a result we are assuming that planets may only bit habitable if they are similiar to our own (eg: have oxygen, water etc).
Is it so hard to believe that our understanding of life is so tiny and insignificant that life can and likely does occur in many places throughout the universe in ways and places we cannot (and likely will not unless we rid ourselves of this niavity) understand.
The universe is a vaste vaste place and it would be utterly stupid of us to assume that just because we (earth species in general) rely on oxygen and water, does not mean that a lifeform as close as Europa or as far as millions of lightyears away is the same.
question
there is one thing i do not get.
why are we assuming that life must exist as we know it? As a result we are assuming that planets may only bit habitable if they are similiar to our own (eg: have oxygen, water etc).
Is it so hard to believe that our understanding of life is so tiny and insignificant that life can and likely does occur in many places throughout the universe in ways and places we cannot (and likely will not unless we rid ourselves of this niavity) understand.
The universe is a vaste vaste place and it would be utterly stupid of us to assume that just because we (earth species in general) rely on oxygen and water, does not mean that a lifeform as close as Europa or as far as millions of lightyears away is the same.